Disney is moving forward with development on two projects. One, the Merlin origin story Young Merlin, sounds like the sort of thing that could be stuck in development hell forever, and perhaps for good reason. The other, an action/comedy called The Wheelman, sounds like a fluffy piece of distraction that we’ll probably see on screens in some February of the future. Read More »

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Get ready for Merlin to be the new Snow White, or the new Linda Lovelace, or whatever icon studios and producers decide to compete over next. Warner Bros. has just tapped Ed Whitworth, a former journalist who evidently has experience as a script reader for Oprah Winfrey’s company, to adapt the T.A. Barron youth-lit novel The Lost Years of Merlin.

Surprise, surprise, this would be a Merlin origin tale, following “Merlin’s journey from being a boy washed on the shores of Wales with no memory and no home, to him becoming a young man learning to use his powers and ultimately defender of the natural world and eventual mentor to King Arthur.” (This project was once at Paramount, but the option lapsed and WB stepped in. It is also different from the modern-day Merlin story that Working Title was putting together last year.) [THR]

After the break, Max Landis picks up a pipe, and a good genre director tries his hand at kids’ holiday fare. Read More »